Carl Smith: (1) Sweet Little Miss Blue Eyes
by Country Music Saved My Life
Influential '50s master of sturdy honky-tonk,
Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Carl Smith was born March 15, 1927, in
Maynardville, Tennessee (also the hometown of another country titan and one of
Smith's inspirations, Roy Acuff).
Known either as "Mr. Country" or
"Mr. Country Gentleman", Carl Smith was a huge star throughout the
'50s, a consistent presence in the country charts, and one of the most popular
and best-known country singers of his era, notching up country hits for almost
twenty-five years.
He recorded several classics, appeared regularly
on variety hours and live television programs (ABC's Jubilee USA and
NBC's Five Star Jubilee), played in a handful of B-movies
(including Buffalo Guns and The Badge of Marshal
Brennan), and hosted a weekly show over Grand Ole Opry's WSM and a
television show of his own for about five years (Canadian Carl Smith's Country
Music Hall).
Hence his artistic background, Carl Smith was
among the first generation of artists to bring country music to television, a
group that included, in addition to him, Buck Owens, Porter Wagoner, Roy Clark,
Norma Jean, Glen Campbell, Mel Tillis, Dolly Parton, Jeannie Seely, Linda Carol
Moore, Barbara Lea, and others.
His songs were solidly country, while
hard-driving up-tempo numbers performed with a drummer. We can assume that Mr.
Smith's sound defined a whole musical style, at least in its updated
form.
Since country music grew from rural Southern and
Southwestern, usually the only available instruments were impromptu stringed
instruments, so the use of a drum kit was not part of the cultural heritage of
the original American settlers. Accordingly, until the fifties, drums were as
welcome at the Grand Ole Opry's stage performances as ants at a picnic.
In this context, Carl Smith brought to
country music a groundbreaking feature: the regular use of a drummer in his
performances. That's not to say drums were absent from country music until
then, given that a few artists already had added some drum to their cuts; but
it was always unobtrusively and discretely. In the late '20s, Jimmie
Rodgers used snares on Desert
Blues (although in an on-and-off way). Also Milton Brown, in his later
years, had begun to add drums on some occasions, especially when he played in
larger venues.
Although Carl Smith was not the first country
artist to add drums to his performances, he can be credited as the first to
bring drums fully into country music, despite the earlier efforts of Pee
Wee King and Bob Wills.
In his debut show at the Opry, in December 1941,
Bob had to agree to the drums being set up out of the audience's sight. Funny
enough, in the opening number of their live set Bob and his playboys moved out
the curtain where the drum set was behind, pulling in plain sight Monte
Mountjoy's kit. Expectedly, it would be their first and last appearance on the
show. But they had nailed it: for the very first time, someone had been playing
the drum kit in the heart of country music, in everyone's face.
Anyway, from then on some drums began to be
allowed into the Opry, provided that they were played on snares only and
remaining behind a curtain. That's what happened to Carl Smith when he was
scheduled to appear in the show, back in 1954. When he brought drummer Buddy
Harman onto the show, he had to agree to this requirement.
Even so, Carl Smith's drummer began to add
brushes and light backbeats to his performances piecemeal, although he remained
hidden behind the curtain.
From that moment on, Carl Smith would become the
first regular Opry artists to routinely use a full drum set in his
performances, mainly when, in 1956, he quit the Grand Ole Opry to join The
Phillip Morris Country Music Show, with whom he would spend more than
a year touring the United States, often in direct competition with touring Opry
shows.
As I understand it, the reason it was so hard to
drag a drum kit to the Grand Ole Opry's stage is that the older Opry members
were worried about country music missing its roots and turning into rock and
roll).
Contrary to what they feared, throughout his
entire career Carl Smith remained one of the most rock-solid of country artists
of the time, sliding from honky-tonk to Western swing to ballads in staunch
adherence to the pure roots of country music, even though updating it.
Nevertheless, by the '70s shifting tastes in
country music had carted off most of his audience, and in 1978 he decided
to retire from recording and touring, to concentrate on raising cutting horses
on his ranch, just a few miles south of Nashville (near Franklin,
Tennessee).
"Carl Smith" by Thomas Hawk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Until his death due to complications from a stroke
on January 16, 2010, Carl Smith refrained from mingling with the core of
country music in Nashville (except for the album he released for the Gusto
label in 1983, and his appearance at the 2003's Country Music Hall of Fame
induction ceremony).
Let's Live a Little was
released in 1958 and included a set of chart hits, including the title
track, Mr. Moon and If Teardrops Were Pennies.
Written by Merle Taylor, C. H. Taube, and
guitarist and songwriter Don Helms, Sweet Little Miss Blue Eyes is
a hard edge, ballroom stomper blend of honky-tonk and Western Swing that
reflects the sounds in which Smith had specialized in.
Although the song had already been released by
Ray Price (May 31, 1955) and by George & Earl (June 1955), it's given a
truly fine interpretation by Carl Smith.
Sided by a dream team of sessions musicians from
the Nashville scene, such as Hank Garland, Floyd Cramer, Grady Martin, Buddy
Garmann (both members of The Nashville A-Team), Tom Pritchard, and Sammy
Pruett, this Carl Smith's cut stands as one of his great moments.
The song tells the story of a woman in the life
of the narrator. Smith’s wonder how gorgeous and fun it’s to be with his woman
as if he had been spent much of his life waiting for her to join him, and that
means she has everything to make him feel special.
Although the lyrical content is a trivial and
oftentimes used topic, the song is filled with a great melody from guitars and
an uptempo beat, and Smith put his mark on the song with hard work guitar
chords, shots of energy, and his unique vocals, permeated with a smoothed-out
Tennessee accent.
Mr. Country was on a hell of success late in the
'50s, and he nails the song with his rendition. The presence of this
tune along with the terrific title track, Hang Your Head in Shame, Mr.
Moon and I Overlooked an Orchid make Let's
Live a Little another typically detached album from him.
Smith was widely regarded as one of the most
important and successful country music singers, ranking among the most popular
hitmakers of the '50s and early-'60s.
To have a clear idea, only Hank Snow, Webb Pierce,
and Eddy Arnold had more success on the Billboard country chart in the '50s
than Carl Smith. He scored more Top 10 strikes than either Hank Williams or
Lefty Frizzell (from 1951 to 1955 he placed an uninterrupted string of 21
singles in the Top 10).
To some extent due to his aptitude for
fast-paced tunes resembling rockabilly, his success played a critical role in
keeping country music solvent, reviving country sales, which had been
devastated in the wake of the rock and roll invasion that undermined country
music audience during those years.
As a honky-tonk and Western Swing revivalist,
Smith rarely crossed over into the pop audience, although one can assume that
his smooth voice, to some extent, prefaced the sophisticated and textured
sounds that would become associated with the yet to come late '50s Nashville
Sound.
Anyhow, his hard honky-tonk sound, filled
with a strong steel guitar, can be considered a source of extreme pride
for traditional country music.
Song Information
• Writers: Merle Taylor, C. H. Taube and Don Helms
• Carl Smith - vocals, acoustic and electric guitar
• Sammy Pruett - guitar
• Hank Garland - guitar
• Grady Martin - guitar
• Tom Pritchard - bass
• Buddy Harman - drums
• Floyd Cramer - piano
• Producer: Don Law
• Recorded at Bradley Film and Recording Studio in Nashville, TN
• Recording date: February 14, 1958
• Release date: July 1958
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